Heating, ventilation, and/or air conditioning (HVAC) systems may generally be used in residential and/or commercial areas for heating and/or cooling to create comfortable temperatures inside those areas. Some HVAC systems may be heat pump systems. Heat pump systems may generally be capable of cooling a comfort zone by operating in a cooling mode for transferring heat from a comfort zone to an ambient zone using a refrigeration cycle and also generally capable of reversing the direction of refrigerant flow through the components of the HVAC system so that heat is transferred from the ambient zone to the comfort zone, thereby heating the comfort zone. Heat pumps may sometimes require starting from an auxiliary power source during a power outage. However, starting a heat pump system from a relatively small power source, such as a generator, is often difficult due to the high momentary currents required by inductive electrical components of the heat pump system. Without special procedures and/or systems, a generator may not be capable of delivering the necessary power to start multiple components of the heat pump system simultaneously.